Chill Out Thursday

Ah, Thursday! My plan was to take it easy and relax. Before I got around to doing that, however, I had to deal with Blue Cross. Which makes ME cross. My boss, who loves to play the financial version of "chicken" with most of our vendors, waited until the 25th of July to send out the July health insurance premium. It was due on the 1st. Granted we have a "grace period" until the end of the month, but it's now the 2nd of August and the check for Blue Cross hasn't cleared. I call Blue Cross and they show no record of receiving payment.

So now I am left wondering whether or not I still have health care coverage. Hopefully the boss got it together and straightened it all out. You can be sure next month that I will be breathing down his neck to make sure it gets mailed out earlier. Or, if in fact it has lapsed, I will be looking for a new job. With health benefits. Know anyone who needs a wiz at bookkeeping, systems, web stuff, writing/editing, analysis and all-around office genius? That's me!

Also, I had to deal with ADP--which stands for Addled Dolts and Peabrains. (Actually, it stands for Automated Data Processing but based on the amount of time I've spent on hold trying to straighten out their screw-ups, there's not much that's AUTOMATED about the process. Other than the insipid marketing messages they play while you sit on hold for an interminable amount of time. My "favorite" is this chirpy female voice saying, "We hope your experience with us DELIGHTS you!" Are they fucking KIDDING?!!! I am so NOT delighted...) Fortunately, the person I'm dealing with right now is great. Her name is Martha and for her ADP stands for Absolute Definition of Professionalism. So BOTH Blue Cross and ADP--on my day off. Go figure.

But once I got them out of the way, I was off to get a long awaited massage and facial. I think it's been TWO YEARS since I've had either. The "spa day" was a thank you from my friend Stevie. I helped her update her website StevieWilsonLA.com and also helped her MOVE her website to a new server. And then I helped her upload a podcast to her new blog--L.A. Story. I was pretty tickled about figuring out how to upload and embed a podcast--I'd never done it before!

Since I've been her go-to girl for tech stuff, she treated me to a massage and facial at Balance Spa in Santa Monica. Located on Montana Avenue, it was about mile down the street from my old "homestead." Sigh. I miss living in Santa Monica! Anyway, I got an hour long massage followed by an hour long facial. And I got massaged even more DURING the facial--so it was almost like a two hour massage. Ah, bliss!

So it took a while, but I finally got to chill out on my day off.